Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai Refutes the Sadducees on Daughters

The Rabbis taught: "If a man dies and has no son" (Numbers 27:8). From this I know only of a son. From where do I learn that the son's son and the son's daughter inherit? Scripture says, "he has none" (ein lo), meaning: look closely after him. As for a daughter: I know only of a daughter; from where the daughter's daughter and the daughter's son? Scripture says, "he has none": look closely after him. How is this? The inheritance keeps reaching back further until Reuben. And why not say back until Jacob? It is a received tradition that a tribe is never wholly cut off. Rav Huna said in the name of Rav: Whoever says that a daughter should inherit together with the son's daughter, even if he be a prince in Israel, we do not heed him, for it is nothing but a Sadducee practice. As it was taught: On the twenty-fourth of Tevet we returned to our law, for the Sadducees used to say that a daughter inherits together with the son's daughter. Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai joined issue with them and said: "Fools, where do you get this from?" And no man could answer him, except one old man who prattled against him and said: "If a man's son's daughter, who comes through the strength of his strength, inherits him, then his own daughter, who comes through his own strength, surely should inherit him by law." Rabban Yochanan read this verse over him: "These are the sons of Seir the Horite, the inhabitants of the land: Lotan and Shobal and Zibeon and Anah" (Genesis 36:20), and it is written, "And these are the children of Zibeon: both Aiah and Anah" (Genesis 36:24). This teaches that Zibeon came upon his own mother and fathered Anah. But perhaps there were two men named Anah? Rava said: I will say a thing that even King Shapur did not say. And who is that? Shmuel. The verse says, "He is the Anah" (Genesis 36:24): he is the same Anah as before. The old man said to him, "Rabbi, with this you dismiss me?" He said to him, "Fool, shall our perfect Torah not be as worthy as your idle talk? What of the son's daughter, whose claim is strong among the brothers, can you say the same of his own daughter, whose claim is weakened among the brothers?" And they refuted them and nullified their view, and that day they made a festival.